a)Thomas Jefferson, de The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson (from The Declaration of Independence) (sin presentador/a)b) Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself y “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Etzelc) Phyllis Wheatley (blog) Lucía

In “A Streetcar Named Desire” the colour blue appears consistently throughout the play. Later on, its occurrence is explained as one of the images that were fixed on Blanche’s mind after a dreadful event in her past. Consequently, the blue eyes of her lover seem to surround her, and the colour acquires additional importance for the text. This is Eréndira’s blue eye.

Karina Lamas:

I did not know how the Vasouviana polka in Blanche’s deranged head sounded, so here it is:

Alethia Ochoa:

When I was walking on Reforma admiring the cultural exhibitions of different countries around the world, these Arabian lamps caught my attention. They reminded me the light bulbs that Blanche refers to in the play because of their weak and mystic light as if they want to disguise the blinding light of reality.

“BLANCHE: I don’t want realism. I want magic! [MITCH laughs.] Yes,
yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to
them. I don’t tell truth, I tell what ought to be truth. And if that
is sinful, then let me be damned for it! -Don’t turn the light on!”

Etzel Hinojosa:

While walking among the antique cars of the exhibition that took place in Las Islas in Cu, I felt that I traveled back in time. There were many cars of the time Tennessee Williams wrote his play, so that it was easier for me to imagine the kind of setting in which A Streetcar Named Desire took place. I thing that the car of the firefighter men was the closest thing that could resemble a streetcar. There were moments in which its owner turned it on and made an annoying noise that made me also remember the continual noises that helped to create the atmosphere of the play.

Valeria Becerril:

I really like the Simpson’s version, it may seem silly when you just see the musical clip but the entire episode portrays Blanche in a far kinder light than the film or the play and it does it well. Still I like the funny side as well so I was sorry that I could not find the one with the actual video. It shows Marge flying with the aid of a harness and surrounded by lasers to represent Blanche’s descent into madness.

I came across this word some weeks ago “desire path.” It is the path that is created alongside the “official” one. This new path is created because it represents the shorts or the easiest way to go between one point and another. The width of the desire path and its erosion are the indicators of the amount of use that the path receives. Although Williams may have wanted to show the opposite, a desire path could prove that desire might emerge as a shortcut.

While sitting next to me, Karina started rubbing her knees, and this reminded me of the obsessive behaviour Anse Bundren displays when he is forced to choose between her children being with their mother in her deathbed and three dollars, in the first chapters of As I Lay Dying; Darl, as a narrator, notices: “‘It’s fixing up to rain,’ pa says. ‘I am a luckless man. I have ever been.’ He rubs his hands on his knees.” (12)

Alethia Ochoa:

The arid land of this cemetery in Oaxaca could portray the
inhospitable southern place in Jefferson where the Bundrens buried
Addie.

Karina Lamas:

This picture that was taken by my sister made me remember about Vardaman Bundren’s famous and puzzling quote “My mother is a fish.” Although this quote probably means “Addie’s decorporealization into metaphor, memory, and print” (Pease 87) for me it represents how inapprehensible is Addie’s dead for little Vardaman.

Etzel Hinojosa:

Last weekend, there was an exhibition of antique cars in CU. I found this little model of Herman Munster’s car, a character of the black and white show called The Munsters. I could not stop thinking about all the trouble the characters of As I Lay Daying could have avoided if they put Addie in one of this motorized coffins.

Valeria Becerril:

The song is “Not my cross to bear” by the Allman Brothers, which I think goes nicely with the theme of As I lay Dying.

Eréndira Díaz:

The dryness in Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying” is the most vivid sensation I have from having read that novel. The day I took that picture, I was actually on a bus and it had been a long trip. The air conditioning had been on all night and I was freezing, but then the sunlight and the feeling of warmth awoke me. The same sun that haunts the Bundren family and causes them to be as dry and arid triggered in me relief.

Although the picture of the advertisement is incomplete, we know it is the picture of a woman. I find interesting how our brain is able to fill the empty gaps in order to complete the feminine image. This photo made me remember The Woman Warrior because one of the struggles of the narrator is her problem to find a middle point between the American and the Chinese image of a woman. In other words, she wants to find a way in which the two images, as in the advertisement, can be combined to create a third one.

Lucía Rodríguez:

The bird seems to be of great importance in The Woman Warrior as it is the animal that the warrior woman follows in order to meet her fate. Also, in another part of the novel, the narrator emphasizes the idea that the birds trick her family (51), rather confusingly. Additionally, it is a sign of good omen when her father leaves the village, “There was a sea bird painted on the ship to protect it against shipwreck and winds” (61).

Montserrat Ochoa:

Reading in the memoir how the sons and daughters of Chinese emigrants try to assimilate the American society in which they have born, and especially when the girls in junior high try to stick their eyelids to look less Asian, made me thought of the Asian inferiority complex and which were the roots of it. As we can read in the memoir, Chinese society has a lot of responsibility for these events, the more they try to enclose their community the more they expose it to be like “the other.” This image shows a product that serves to glue the eyelids so eyes look more Western. Normally people blame “the other” for imposing stereotypes, but in this reading I realize how much blame has to be placed in the entity that does not accept its qualities and follows the rules of “the other.”

Karina Lamas Evangelista:

This lucky Chinese cat and this Chinese take-away menu made me think of the trivialization of an ancient culture as well as how the stereotypes affect the self-aprehension of the narrator as a first generation Chinese descendant.

Alethia Ochoa:

As we know one of the main themes in cummings’ poetry is spring. In
this photo I am sitting in a garden with flowers and reminds me one of
my favourite cummings’ poems:

spring!may—
everywhere’s here
(with a low high low
and the bird on the bough)
how?why
—we never we know
(so kiss me)shy sweet eagerly my
most dear

(die!live)
the new is the true
and to lose is to have
—we never we know—
brave!brave
(the earth and the sky
are one today)my very so gay
young love

why?how—
we never we know
(with a high low high
in the may in the spring)
live!die
(forever is now)
and dance you suddenly blossoming tree
—i’ll sing

Valeria Becerril:

As in Karina’s photo here we can see the trivalization of the oriental culture in order for it to fit with the occidental one.

Eréndira Díaz:

e.e. cummings got his name because of a printing mistake. I doubt Frost would have decided to rename himself. This book is at Biblioteca Central.